Chapter 7. Early Childhood Education and Development
3. Remaining challenges and opportunities
of ECED compared to only around 20% in 2008. This translates into an additional 1.82 million children attending ECED services in 2013 compared with 2008. Enrolment rates in ECED area differ significantly by age. While approximately 40% of 5-6 year olds were enrolled in some form of ECED in 2013 only 16% of 3-4 year olds were. In light of international research on the benefits of intervening early in development, the low numbers for children below age 5 is of concern.
Figure 64. ECED gross enrolment rates (3-6 age group), 2008-2013
Source: Susenas 2008-2013
Households with higher incomes tend to send more of their children to ECED than poor households.
Enrolment rates amongst the wealthiest 20% of households are approximately twice as high as rates for the poorest households (Figure 65). These differences are far higher than those seen in primary and junior secondary school but similar to those seen in senior secondary. Moreover, the gap in ECED enrolment rates between poor and non-poor households has persisted since 2008.
Figure 65. Disparities in access to ECED, 2013
Source: Susenas 2013
Disparities in access to ECED services are also linked to location, gender and socio-economic status (Figure 65). For example, 66% of children in the 3-6 year age group are enrolled in ECED services in Yogyakarta compared to only 10% in Kalimantan Barat. Figure 65 also shows that slightly more girls than boys attend ECED and children from wealthier households are more likely to be enrolled. As a result of these accumulated disadvantages, by the time many of these children begin primary school, they are already far behind in essential areas of development and school readiness.
These disparities in ECED attendance and particularly the low participation of children from poorer households are driven partly by demand-side constraints. These include: the temporary migration of families, including their young children, to the field or plantation sites during harvesting time, the opportunity cost for
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 ECED gross enrolment ratio (ages 3-6)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
2013
ECED net enrolment rate
NER: Age 3‐4 NER: Age 5‐6
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
male female poorest 20%
wealthiest 20%
gender wealth
ECED net enrolment rate ages 3-6, 2013
45.8 66.3 45.6 34.639.4 33.534.3 31.2 28.330.6 28.128.3 28.0 25.025.7 24.9 23.224.3 22.3 20.220.9 20.020.1 19.6 18.719.1 17.018.1 15.4 14.414.4 9.911.7
0 20 40 60 80
Gross Enrollment Rate ECE: Age 3-6 DI YogyakartaJawa TengahJawa TimurGorontalo
Sulawesi Barat Kalimantan SelatanSulawesi TengahPapua BaratDKI JakartaNTBBali Kalimantan TengahKep.Riau Kep.Bangka BelitungSulawesi TenggaraKalimantan TimurSumatera SelatanSulawesi SelatanKalimantan BaratSumatera BaratSumatera UtaraSulawesi UtaraMaluku UtaraJawa BaratLampungBengkuluMalukuBantenPapuaJambiAcehRiauNTT
SUSENAS, 2013
parents to take their children to ECED services or simply parents’ low awareness on the importance and benefit of ECED for their children’s development.
However supply side-constraints also play a part in explaining the disparities in ECED attendance. Figure 66 below shows the wide disparities across Indonesia in the percentage of villages that have an ECED center. For example, only about one in five villages in Papua have an ECED center; in contrast every villages in Yogyakarta has a center.
Figure 66. Proportion of villages with an ECED facility, 2012
Source: MoEC
The type of service that children attend before primary school is also linked to family wealth. For example, the demand for kindergarten (TK) among the poor is not as high as among the non-poor. This may be due to the higher cost of TK, and the ability of households to enroll their children in primary school at no cost. According to Susenas 2012 data, 40% of children age 6 are already in primary school, as well as a small percentage of 5 years old—although primary school in Indonesia is intended to begin when children are age 7. The fact that public primary schools do not charge fees, combined with the per-student funding allocation for the BOS (School Operation Fund) grants for primary schools, provides an incentive for both parents and schools to enroll young children in primary school even when they are still pre-primary-aged. Because in many areas there is also significant late enrolment in schools, the six-year-olds (and even some 5-year-olds) may be in a class with much older children, attempting to cope with participating in a curriculum and pedagogy designed for seven year olds. Because primary school teachers currently lack competencies in child-centered, active-learning pedagogy, 5- and 6-year-olds who are enrolled in primary school because of lack of local, affordable ECED programs are at risk of having a educationally and emotionally negative first experience in school. Such an experience at the very beginning of primary school is likely to have long term negative impact.
Supporting the establishment of ECED services in poor and remote villages has the potential to address disparities in ECED attendance and improve education outcomes significantly. The government has identified 27,000 villages without any ECED services, representing 35% of total village in Indonesia. These villages are usually located in 3 T areas: Tertinggal, Terdepan/ perbatasan dan terluar (disadvantaged, border and remote). Focusing access expansion in these areas can be an option to target limited government funding, especially when one considers the evidence that poor children gain the most benefit in terms of child outcomes from attending ECED services. In reaching out to these disadvantaged groups, a synergy with other poverty reduction programs will provide many benefits since these programs tend to have comprehensive targeting mechanisms and rely on community facilitators. These community facilitators could be used to socialize communities on the importance of ECED and to link them to other funding opportunities.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Papua Barat Papua Maluku Utara NAD Kalimantan Tengah Nusa Tenggara Timur Maluku Kalimantan Barat Sulawesi Barat Kalimantan Timur Bengkulu Sulawesi Tengah Jambi Sumatera Selatan Sulawesi Tenggara Sumatera Utara Riau Lampung Kepulauan Riau Sulawesi Utara Kalimantan Selatan Banten Sulawesi Selatan Jawa Barat Gorontalo Kep. Babel Jawa Timur Sumatera Barat Jawa Tengah Nusa Tenggara Barat Bali DKI Jakarta D.I. Yogyakarta
% of villages with PAUD
3.2. Concerns about the inadequacy of the quality of ECED services
The Quality Assurance System – Is it working?
An effective quality assurance system is vital to ensure that the ECED services provided to children are of good quality and support better child development outcomes and school readiness. Over the last five years the building blocks of an effective quality assurance system have been put in place. These include:
• The ECED national standards (Permen 58/ 2009)
• Pusat Penjaminan Mutu Pendidikan (Education Quality Assurance Body) especially the ECED, Non- formal and Informal Education Unit7
• The establishment of ECED supervisor positions at district level
• On-line data monitoring system coordinated by the Directorate General PAUDNI
• Accreditation system of ECED services, including Badan Akreditasi PAUD(NI) and their assessors
• Institutions at the regional, provincial and district levels that could play a stronger quality assurance role8.
While the building blocks are in place, they are not yet working fully as a system and the coordination is still unclear. There is still a significant gap between the issuance of the national standard – meant to guide the level of quality – and its implementation. Supervisors, as the main agent for quality assurance, (through monitoring, evaluation and reporting to the district government) are seriously constrained by their capacity and competency. In short, there is no system where actual condition of the services can be monitored and data evaluated and reported to the respective authority to conduct improvement actions.
The Gap between National ECED Standard and its Implementation
A good reference to use when discussing about quality of ECED service is the existing Standard for Early Childhood Education (2009), where target it set for key quality components: i) Standards for Developmental Achievement in Early Childhood for various developmental domain and for each age groups; ii) Standards for Teachers and Education Personnel (qualification and competency); iii) Standards for content, process and assessment (program structure, length of service, planning and implementation of activities, children assessment); and iv) Standards for Facility, Management and Funding.
The national ECED standards provide a strong basis for both government and community to recognize the criteria of ‘good ECED services’. However, even though the standards were issued in late 2009, the socialization of these standards to the district level has been limited. Wider socialization and support for their implementation are the next logical steps to ensure that they are used to improve the quality of all ECED services. Providing incentive for districts or services who are enforcing the standard can be introduced to boost the meeting of the standards.
Mapping Quality of ECED Services using ECERS-R
As part of the Impact Evaluation of ECED project, an international assessment known as the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R) was administered in 2013 in 9 sample districts of the project to gain a better understanding of the quality of ECED services9 The instruments were administered to all types of ECED services in the sampled villages, including TK and non-project Play Groups.. The instrument consists of 7 sub- scales that are – interestingly - closely linked to the ECED National Standards: i) Space and Furnishings, ii)
7 Education Quality Assurance Body is part of Agency for Human Resource Development and Education Quality Assurance (Badan SDMPPMP)
8 Pusat Pengembangan Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini, Nonformal dan Informal (P2-PAUDNI), and Balai Pengembangan Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini, Nonformal dan Informal (BP-PAUDNI) and Balai Pengembangan Kegiatan Belajar (BPKB), Sanggar Kegiatan Belajar (SKB).
Personal Care Routines, iii) Language – Reasoning, iv) Activities, v) Interaction, vi) Program Structure and vii) Parents and Staff.
While the results are not representative of Indonesia as a whole they show that the quality of Indonesian ECED services is low (Figure 67). Indonesian services score in the ‘minimally acceptable’ range of the ECERs score (a score of 3 out of 7) which indicates the need for further improvement. Indonesia is not alone in minimally acceptable levels of ECED quality – services in Bangladesh, Brazil and parts of China score equally poorly or worse. In part these low ratings reflect the strict nature of the ECERS rating scale: notice that even services based in Canada do not score highly enough to reach the ‘good’ range of the ECERS score (a score of 5 out of 7).
The average ECERS score masks a great deal of variation across individual sub-scales of the ECERS score.
These sub-scales cover a variety of aspects of the services. Indonesian services – particularly those supported through the ECED project – score better on the aspects of ‘interaction’ and ‘language and reasoning’ than on other subs-scales measured by the assessment. This demonstrates that in some areas Indonesia has already established a good basis while in others further efforts are needed to improve the quality of ECED services.
Figure 67. Quality of ECED services in selected districts, 2013
The quality of ECED educators and personnel the gap in meeting the Standards of Qualification and Competency
According to official 2012 data10, the number of registered ECED teachers/ educator is 353.266 (267,576 TK and 85,690 Play Group)
10 Buku Data PAUDNI 2012. In the meantime, the DAPODIK data recorded 692,546 of ECED teacher/educator registered.
The Qualification (academic degree) a teacher or teaching personnel should have is regulated through the Ministerial Decree of 16/ 2007 and in Ministerial Decree of 58/ 2009
Box 17. Qualification for personnel in ECED services
Position Qualification
Teacher in ‘Formal’ ECED Service: TK/ PAUD/ RA Bachelor Degree (S1) or 4 year Diploma (D4) in Early Childhood Education or Psychology
Assistant Teacher (Guru Pendamping) 2 year Diploma (D2) or Senior High School with training certificates on ECED
Caregiver (Pengasuh) Senior High School
While the standards have defined the qualifications required of ECED educators, a large proportion of educators in the system fall below them (Figure 68). Comparing the ‘ideal’ qualification standard and the existing education background shows that there is a significant backlog of under-qualified teachers. For example, 80% of TK teachers do not have the S1/D4 qualification required under the regulations. Moreover, the majority of non-formal ECED educators have no formal qualifications beyond senior secondary school despite educators requiring an S1/D4 qualification.
Figure 68 shows the percentage of currently registered TK and Play Group teachers/ educator with various qualifications. The requirement to have S1 (Undergraduate University Degree)/ D4 (HI Diploma degree) is met by 20.3% of the current TK teachers and only 12.5% of Play Group Teaching Personnel. A high percentage remains of teachers still having SMA (Senior High School) education: 43.1% of TK teachers and 75% of Play Group Teachers.
Figure 68. Qualifications profile of ECED Educators
Source: Direktorat P2TK PAUDNI Ditjen PAUDNI (summarized based on qualification requirement for teacher in the Decree of Minister of Education No.12 of 2007, No.16 of 2007, No.58 of 2009 and Minister of National Apparatus No.14 of 2010)
SMP and SMA refer to Junior and Senior Secondary School respectively. D 1 – 4 is Diploma degree from Tertiary Education, ranging from 1 – 4 years. S1, S2, S3 refers to Undergraduate, Master and Doctoral University Degree respectively.
To meet the standard, most ECED teaching personnel are pursuing their degree in various higher education institutions using their private funds. The Open University is the most popular option. In addition, Directorate P2TK PAUDNI (Development for Teacher and Teaching Personnel for ECED, Non-formal and Informal Education) facilitates the ‘acceleration program’ which allows current ECED teachers to complete their study
14.1%
43.1%
61.5%
8.9%
2.5%
18.7%
6.9%
8.7%
20.3% 12.5%2.4%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Guru TK KB/TPA/SPS Educator
S3 S2 S1 D3 D2 D1 SMA SMP
more quickly than regular students because these universities have agreed to recognize their prior learning (and experience). This program is currently implemented in a few universities. Support from Directorate P2TK is very limited.
In their 2013 budget, for example, they provided scholarships for 6,176 TK teachers to pursue degree programs in various institutions and supported 500 Play Group Teachers to attend acceleration programs.
These S1, D4 or even acceleration programs are not only limited in number but are also logistically challenging for many ECED teachers/ teaching personnel who live in rural and poor areas. The other concern about these programs also is the inadequacy in providing practical experience for its students. This is an emphasis in most countries—and from US research, there is little difference in ECED child outcomes based on whether teachers’ have degrees or not. The emphasis now is ensuring the quality of the degree program ECED Teachers and Teacher Personnel are also required to meet the standard of various aspects of Competency, including Pedagogy, Personality, Social, and Professional.
For improving the competency, Directorate P2TK’s main program is the 3 level short training (Diklat Berjenjang), Basic, Intermediate and Advance. Selected local organizations, such as HIMPAUDI and IGTKI (ECED teacher association), are provided a block grant to organize short courses for certain number of participants using curriculum and other guidelines provided by P2TK.
The coverage of this program, however, is very limited. Between 2011 and 2013, some 42,000 teachers/
educators completed the basic training (where 7 only 14,391 teachers/ educators completed the Basic Training and 668 for the Intermediate trainings using P2TK funding. In the meantime, to meet the high demand (and need) some local government cover the cost of basic training for 1,117 teachers and using their private funds (USD 80), another 26,210 teachers completed the Basic Training. If the training capacity remains at this rate, it will take almost a decade for even all the currently registered teachers to complete only the Basic training. Furthermore, the local capacity to implement training (through Training Provider) is not evenly distributed: 8 (out of 33) provinces have training providers that can train 32,000 participants, whereas the capacity of similar organization in the remaining 25 provinces was only able to train 10,000 participants.
With the government target of establishing one ECED service in every village, other programs to improve teacher competency are urgently needed.
Training on the competencies required by ECED educators is also offered in a number of other institutions.
Some educators participate in magang (semi apprenticeship) schemes where they spend a period of time observing and learning from good quality ECED. Teacher cluster meetings, or kegiatan gugus, at the sub- district level also provide a forum for teachers to share knowledge on a regular basis. In addition to these activities ECED educators can enroll in 50 higher education institutions currently offering ECED study programs that aim to raise educator competency. It is important to ensure that all the study programs observe the competency standards outlined in the National Standard and incorporate them in their curriculum.
The quality and impact of the various training programs aimed at improving the qualifications, competencies, and overall quality of ECED educators has not been evaluated. This makes it difficult to assess the extent to which these activities contribute to better teacher competency and ultimately improved child development outcomes. However, there is a recognized need to improve the practical skills, rather than just the theoretical knowledge, skills of ECED educators. This will require professional development forums such as magang and cluster meeting (gugus) to reassess current learning materials and shift their focus away from the current emphasis on theory. The focus on the practical skills of the teacher is also relevant to child- centered focus of the 2013 curriculum.
The under-utilized role of ECED Supervisor in Quality Assurance
Supervisors (Penilik) play a key role in monitoring the quality of ECED services at the district level. Regulations on their role stipulate that they hold the responsibility and authority to conduct quality assurance and
evaluate the effectiveness of non-formal and informal ECED services.11 Despite their central role in quality assurance and supporting quality improvement there are a number of limitations:
• Insufficient capacity to conduct monitoring and evaluation effectively. The very limited number of penilik and the lack of logistical support have severely restricted the ability of penilik to visit ECED centers within their work coverage. This is exacerbated by the lack of knowledge, skill or even instrument for effectively conducting monitoring. Furthermore, there is no system to make use of the information collected by supervisor to inform district policy on ECED.
• Low level of knowledge on ECED. Supervisors often lack the skills required to cover ECED services. Very few supervisors, if any, have a background in early childhood education and the importance of play-based learning to support age-appropriate stimulation. It is therefore unrealistic to expect them to provide meaningful coaching and other support to the teachers without further training.
• Unattractive employment conditions. The salary is not competitive when compared with primary education supervisors (pengawas) and prior to the issuance of Perpres 63 in year 2010 they are subject to an earlier pension age (56) compared to primary education supervisors (60).
• Unclear reporting lines. While supervisors are considered as district office staff, they are stationed at the sub-district level (kecamatan) but have no clear reporting line to the kecamatan education office which is responsible for monitoring their performance.
A more Aligned Curriculum of ECED and the Early Grades of Primary School
The age-specific development milestones in the ECED standards, especially in the Cognitive and Language domains, provide a strong basis for the new ECED curriculum particularly because they eliminate the dichotomy between formal and non-formal services. In addition, it is important for the ECED curriculum to be aligned with the new curriculum for primary curriculum (Curriculum 2013). In this way ECED can contribute directly to school readiness and allow children to transition smoothly into primary school. This will also address the concern about the increasing number of children below age 7 entering primary school where child-centered approach is kept consistent for the teaching of these young children.
3.3. Coordination: Early Childhood Education within the Framework of Holistic and Integrated ECD
Multiple providers of Essential Needs of Children
This chapter focuses primarily on the Education and Early stimulation (ECE) aspects of Early Childhood Development for the 3-6 year old age group which fall under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Culture. However, children have other essential needs in order to achieve their full potential, which includes health, nutrition and protection. The integrated provision of all these services for children means that children, and families, can receive these essential needs at one point of service, or several but well- coordinated service points, within their village. From the point of view of the service providers, efficiency can be made through coordination, since they are serving similar target group.
Currently, the responsibility for delivering these different aspects fall within various Ministries and agencies:
including the Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare, State Ministry for Women’s Empowerment, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Social Affairs, BKKBN (National Family Planning Coordination Board) and Ministry of Home Affairs. Within each of these ministries there are often several departments involved in managing ECED services. Coordination is challenging because often there is no clear division of duties and authorities among them.
11 Permenpan/RB/No. 14/2010